Call of Duty: MW3 To Use Steamworks

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This just came in from Valve: “The PC version of the product will be powered with Steamworks for both the digital and tangible versions of the game and, as with all Steamworks titles, offline play will also be supported along with Auto-Updating, Achievements, and more. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will also support dedicated servers on day 1.”

I don’t even understand what you think a second monitor will do. All I’m saying is, MW3 is integrated seamlessly with my steam friend’s list, and server browser, whereas battlefield makes me login and launch origin, to login and launch a webbrowser, which will then in turn let me finally launch a game.

Except origin doesn’t support any third party games ( yet, at least ).

And the battle.net store has no client, already exists for quite some time and is ( and has always been ) the only way to buy Blizzard games through direct download ( excluding shady key resellers, of course ).

yep, I love not having vehicles, 64 or even 32 player battles, classes and the Frostbite 2 engine /sarcasm and before you say ANYTHING about origin, yes, i have used it and NO it doesn’t suck, its not Steam, but it works

@Commisar,
Actually I do hate vehicles, in my opinion they are overpowered. Also I do hate having 64 players, 4v4 with my friends is much more fun. I also don’t like classes because I don’t want to have to do something I don’t like so that I can do something I do like e.g. I don’t want to run round blowing up tanks when I am sniping. And if graphic are the only thing that matters to you, they you are shallow.

It hurts to hate a game that does Steamworks and dedicated servers for multiplayer. But I know it’s just going to be a mockery of a PC game like Black Ops, despite seeming like they are doing a lot right.

Blacks ops has been enormous fun. Got nearly 60 hours with the map packs so I am more than happy with the return on investment. The latest map pack is great fun. As for Origin it can be shoved up EA’s backside.

Join the Steam ‘EA Boycott Origin’ Group. Fight the power and bring BF3 / Dragon Age 2 / Crysis 3 / Mass Effect 3 and every other new EA game back to Steam. We are small but with your help we can grow. We also boycott Tom Francis as well if that helps.

Personally, I’d rather enjoy neither. BF3 has horrible Origin and would force me to “upgrade” from my beloved XP OS. MW3 will be another boring CoD title in a long line of boring CoD titles and requires Steam (and would be giving money to Kotick).

About the only difference between them is that BF3 has vehicles, a bit bigger maps and only costs $79.99 AUD ($84.93 USD) via Origin, while MW3 will have crazy cool akimbo atlatls which will be used by zombie Swedish nationalists who want to return Sweden to its former pure monarchy, and will cost $99.99 USD on Steam.

While BF3 definitely sounds better, its only better in the way that getting kicked in the balls is better than being hit by a car. Both still suck.

I still use XP because I see no actual reason to upgrade. I mean, I could ‘upgrade’ and get slower performance or ‘upgrade’ so that I can use the latest, greatest, locked-to-the-newest-OS-for-monetary-reasons version of DirectX, but I can’t see any benefit that it actually brings to the table. I don’t want to have to transfer all my files and reinstall all my games just so that I can use a DX version which should be available on XP. I’d also like to be able to play my old games; I’ve heard many people complain that they can’t play older games on W7 or that they’re very buggy and unstable.

I still don’t understand why BF3 requires DX11 – there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly special about DX11 and I’ve yet to see a comment from the devs about why they simply cannot support DX9. Hell, most games support DX7, so it doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to support DX9. I just wonder if its MS paying people off again (like with Crysis where many graphical features were locked if you didn’t have DX10, but you could unlock them in the games files and play fine with DX9).

So, until I see a reason to have more than 3.5 GB of RAM, or Microsoft finally release a new OS is actually somehow innovative (not just a few small things like a search box), I’ll remain on XP.

Wow Matressi, not only are you still playing the ‘DX10 was a monetised upgrade’ argument, but you’re digging up Crysis too!

Wow…

Welcome to the future, when revised graphics APIs don’t necessarily mean ZOMG fancy graphics, but back-end rewrites that mean development costs fall, code is cleaner and new features can be added just like that.

Meh, you enjoy your future, I’ll enjoy mine. Apparently around 40% of Steam users are not truly living in the future either. BF3 is the only game that I’ve considered getting, but couldn’t due to not having a ‘good enough’ system – and I’d have passed it up anyway because it requires Origin. I can run all other modern games on high graphics on my system, so I don’t feel that I’m missing out on anything. It just seems to be an odd decision to cut out 40% of your potential customer base – but perhaps you’re right, and it would have cost them more money to make it DX9 compatible than they’d have received from the 40% of people living in the past.

I’m also not quite sure why it’s considered a ridiculous notion that they’d have been paid off to not make it DX9 compatible (especially when they haven’t said why they won’t), when clearly EA was paid off to make Crysis not allow some graphical features for DX9 users. But that was 4 years ago maaaaaan, things are totally different. EA aren’t a bunch of money-grabbing douches and the graphics of games have drastically increased. But, of course, they haven’t neglected DX9 because of graphics, but because it’s easier to code. They’ll obviously be able to release the game after much less development time and at less cost to them and the user, because they’ve used DX11, right? Or will it still take them just as long, cost us just as much money, but cut out 40% of potential customers? Either it’s a huge friggin game (in terms of features) to be taking so long to make when they’re using super-fast DX11 coding, they’ve hired monkeys instead of coders, or what you’re saying isn’t actually the reason they’re using DX11.

I don’t know why people hate on Black Ops, yeah I know when it was released there were some issues but as a late joiner to the game, I’ve had zero issues it runs fine, a lot better than the 360 version. The only thing I do hate is not being able to lobby up with friends.

When CoD:MW2 announced it would have Steamworks many online retailers like Direct2Drive refused to carry it. Plus there was just this whole GameStop fiasco where they removed OnLive coupons from the new Deus Ex game.

Mark, those copies where for incorrect bans on the part of VAC when none should have happened. That is on Valve, and I commend them for doing so.

That is exactly my point Zilla. Nothing is wrong with VAC, when used properly. The problem was that IW used VAC as the sole means of anti-cheat without any possibility of self policing on the part of the community.

Indeed, VAC’s system of delayed bans is actually genius. It gives a banned hack a few days to circulate before booting out the offenders – you take out more hackers in one go. Plus, if Valve’s comments in the past about TF2 hackers are anything to go by, you make a tidy bit of extra cash off the cheaters who simply won’t take no for an answer and will re-purchase the game again on a new Steam account.

The trade off with the delayed bans is that you need server admins in the interim to kick and ban suspected hackers from servers, which MW2 entirely lacked.

Well, Black Ops uses Steamworks as well, but that doesn’t make it any more comfortable to use. From the brief sessions I’ve played it, I remember you still had to use the in-game friends feature to set up games woth your buddies. It seemed like the game only uses part of Steamworks.

It’s cool to hate on Call of Duty here, but whatever, I still enjoy the series. But yeah, that was one of the most disappointing things about Black Ops for me – the friends list implementation was crap. I would have thought that it using Steamworks meant I could one-click join my friends in the same way I can do with Team Fortress 2, but Treyarch didn’t feel like using that part of the service.

I skipped Black Ops after not enjoying MW 2 on PS3. That said, I’m more keen to pick up CoD on PC given the Steamworks support. Still has to be an outstanding game. Not buying BF 3 at the moment, just too much BS surrounding it. Need reassurance that the game / Origin service is not scanning my PC for anything other than exploits, and at that no more than what’s in memory.

A) you can play on LAN servers without an internet connection?
B) offline single player only?
C) offline a-la Aliens vs Predator 2010 (Steamworks) where you can’t save your singleplayer progress without being online?

For all those babies saying that this does not change anything for Modern Warfare 3, it does. Not for you since you’re all babies. It changes Activision’s profits for the better as compared to them not using Steamworks.

Of course this can now no longer be proven but the whole point of Steamworks is to have an added value to a game. EA can always argue that it would be because MW3 already had a big following but added value always adds value.

In EA’s case, regardless of Battlefield 3’s success, Origin is a liability to DICE’s game. Battlefield 3 will succeed despite having Origin. Sort of like Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France in spite of his cancer. And if nobody believes me about the Origin thing, read through all the forums and see how many pre-orders of BF3 will be because they don’t mind Origin.

It’s like not minding pain, discomfort, injury, someone who is really annoying or severely unattractive.

Nice of them to do that, but the distribution isn’t the issue with Call of Duty games. It’s the content.

It’s MW2 but with a few different weapon skins. There’s absolutely nothing here that’s remotely new and exciting. Understandable that’s what a lot of people do want, but not many of us here fall into that demographic.

@ResonanceCascade
Yes, I’m aware of that. I’m referring more to the community of RPS which appears to be made of older audiences who don’t seem as interested in the later CoD games.

The game does know what it wants to be and how to be it, but a lot of older gamers (which RPS seems to be mostly populated by) aren’t as interested in being a proxy more than a catalyst. It’s more like an interactive movie than most people think – you’re in an important role, but the game is so rigid and controlled you’re more or less just kind of there for the ride.

and yet, my community is much more likely to adopt MW3 than, say, BF3, even though I played BF3 at the weekend and it looks amazing, and even though the concept of BF3’s multiplayer (ie, infantry, tanks, air force) is, imo, better.

Why? Dedicated servers. MW3 will allow people to run their own. BF3, you can only rent from selected GSPs. My community pay for co-location of three server boxes, we aren’t going to pay potentially up to the cost of a fourth to have someone else run a piece of software we’re quite capable of running ourselves.

That’s almost my point. It’s good that it may have public server files, very good. Battlefield’s “rent-a-server” thing annoys the crap out of me. But the problem is the game itself may likely not be something you really like playing period.

It’s kind of like being given a fancy $100 Logitech remote but you only have a TV without cable.

4’s single player was more fun than it really should have been, the one mission where you’re a marine trying to save a tank crew was one of my all time favorite levels. They really nailed the atmosphere and provided a sense of urgency where there actually wasn’t any (there was no timer).

This is such a good move for the benefit of UK retail. Maybe now THQ will ignore Game’s threats for not stocking games that include steamworks and sold through steam. (e.g. link to rockpapershotgun.com.)

EDIT: I know previous games used steamworks too but the climate of UK retail has changed recently

I really want EA to finally tell us how Origin is going to work. Steamworks sucks because you have to run the client in the background at all times and without connection to Valve servers, it’s even impossible to install games. I wonder if Origin works exactly the same or there are differences.
Come on EA/DICE, explain it already!

As for MW3- no sale. Stopped buying CoD games after CoD2, got tired of the scripted nonsense, Steamworks only makes the games drop lower on my “to buy” list.

Isn’t it working already? I think it’s been a few weeks already since EADM became Origin. I haven’t installed the client yet because I use Steam for all the stuff I got there, but I believe you can still register any Mirror’s Edge, Bad Company or whatever EA key you might have and try it for yourself.

@zergrush
See, that’s not so easy. Battlefield 3 will be the first game with Origin bundled.
Activating older games on Origin proves nothing, you don’t need Origin to run in the background after downloading, that I know for a fact, but who says it’ll be true for Battlefield 3 and future games?

The thing is, if you said ANYTHING ELSE we might be able to take the odd comment here and there about your hatred of Steam, but it’s practically all you say. You’re like the old grandfather who sits in the corner constantly kvetching about whatever aspect of youth he finds offensive that week. As soon as anything even slightly Steam or Valve related pops up on RPS there you are putting the boot in – again. Your message has been heard – we get it – you don’t like Steam, but constantly reiterating that message as part of your one-man crusade isn’t doing anything but marginalising your opinions.

Change the channel once in a while and maybe people here might take you more seriously.

Fear not, lads. I’ve read the leaked docs for Team Call of Warfare: Modern Battlefield of Honour 4. It will have such great features as:

1. The Ability to Seamlessly Dress Your Character in Funny Hats.
2. The Option to Launch Your Game and Admire Said Funny Hats. ($9.99 Extra day one DLC)
3. The Option to Shoot Men In Said Funny Hats. (Offline only, $14.99 Extra day two DLC)
4. The Option to Wear Funny Hats While Shooting Men In Funny Hats. (Only available in pre-order copies from the Czechian Gamestop, if they don’t decide to remove it from the box and sell it to you for $29.99 afterwards)

I’m sure we can all look forward to the forced Games for Steam Live: Origins;Battle for Gamersgateload
install as well. I’ve heard they have managed to optimize it by making it only use 89.9% of your CPU load.

I enjoyed MW1 enough and the multiplayer was quite enjoyable to dip into for a few quick sessions, much in the way I often play TF2. I’m sure MW2, BLOPS and this are the same in that regard, but I’m not spending £16.94, £22.00 or £34.91 (their respective Amazon prices) on them when I can get much better. I would probably consider MW2 or BLOPS if they were a tenner; I would expect the map packs to be included for that too (see Steam’s weekend deal of Borderlands GOTY for £5.)

Totally unrelated: Don’t let your caption work slide. Only 1 (in word: one) caption on the front page right now. I don’t have time for articles / trailers. I need to see everything condensed in this one funny sentence or how else can I get through all the information presented to me?

One thing I really enjoyed about the previous Battlefield titles was the rarity of getting bossed around by some screaming 10 year old mountain dew receptacle. Seems like it happens a lot in MW. And how the hell can anyone say vehicles in BF are overpowered? Ever been in a game of MW2 and see the whole royal air force worth of harriers on the map? Yeeeeah…. On top of being computer controlled aimbots.

EDIT: Might I also mention that main battle vehicles are supposed to be extremely powerful. That’s kind of the point.